1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to a network relay device.
2. Description of the Related Art
In recent years, from the point of view of energy savings or carbon dioxide (CO2) emission reductions, it has been desired to measure actual power consumptions separately for electronic devices for business uses, such as network relay devices, gather and total results thereof and manage energy efficiency per establishment. The term “establishment” here refers to, for example, a data center, a communication base station, etc. in which numerous network relay devices, server devices, etc. are installed.
In view of such social backgrounds, conventional art has been variously suggested that monitors, as the whole of a system, respective separate power consumptions of electronic devices or electric products system connected to each other through a network or a power line.
For example, conventional art (see JP-A-2007-192758) has been known that monitors an integral power consumption of the whole of a system of a plurality of electronic devices system connected to each other through a network, by utilizing a connecting line therefor. In this conventional art, when there are electronic devices constituting, for example, an AV system, such as a display, a player, a speaker and the like, power information acquiring portions are installed in them respectively, to monitor their respective power consumptions separately, and output results thereof from communication portions respectively to the network.
Also, another conventional art system (see JP-A-2010-175388) has been known that monitors respective power consumptions of electric products of each kind connected to home wiring. In this conventional art, any one of the electric products (e.g. a television) connected to the home wiring is provided with a center function for being able to display, as visible information, total power consumption information measured by a power meter and the respective power consumptions of the electric products connected to the home wiring. The home electric products each have a built-in information device with a power measuring circuit and a communication portion for allowing the measured power consumption information of each of the electric products to be gathered and totaled by the electric product provided with the center function.
These conventional arts are useful in that the respective measured power consumptions of the plural electronic devices or electric products are gathered and totaled by network communication, so that the power consumptions thereof as the whole of the system can be easily grasped.